LinkedIn Members Petition US Medical Device Tax

A discussion group with 110,000 members on social networking site LinkedIn has launched a website to collect votes in its petition against a proposed 2.3% medical device tax in the USA, due to take effect in January 2013. The initiative is called No 2.3.

The new website, found at www.no2point3.com, is an online petition to US Congress featuring video, articles, and downloads about the medical device tax.

The discussion group which has set up the site is the Medical Devices Group. It claims to be a spam-free, curated forum for intelligent conversations with medical device thought leaders.

According to the group, the tax, to be paid by firms with or without net income, roughly doubles the industry’s total tax bill and raises the average effective corporate income tax rate to one the highest faced by any industry in the world. According to a September 2011 study entitled Employment Effects of the New Excise Tax on the Medical Device Industry, the tax could result in job losses in excess of 43,000 and wage losses of more than $3.5 billion.

Joe Hage, leader of the 110,000-member Medical Devices Group, conceived the No 2.3 lobbying initiative. "I created the website so the group I represent could raise its collective voice in unison with 400 medical device companies, the Medical Device Manufacturers Association (MDMA), the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), and others."

The site was funded in part by Cook Medical, the multi-specialty global medical device OEM and medical device marketing consultancy Medical Marcom.